Editor's Choice 317

Hose and Couplings
Booth 2818 – Series WT Tigerflex is a heavy-duty PVC food-grade material-handling hose for use with pellets or dry food products. Series WE is a heavy-duty PVC food-grade hose with an embedded grounding wire for the handling of pellets or powders. Series 2001 is a polyurethane-lined PVC food-grade hose with an embedded grounding wire for indoor abrasive applications. It handles pellets, grains, and powders. Aluminum compression adapters and quick couplers, along with quick-acting couplings and special spiral double-bolt clamps, are offered to complete the connection.
Kuriyama of America Inc., Schaumburg, IL 847-755-0360 www.kuriyama.com

Round Maintenance Gate
Booth 1453 – Available in sizes from 6 to 16 in., this round maintenance gate mounts above airlocks or below bins and hoppers to handle dry material during periodic maintenance shutdowns. The interior of the gate is fully lined with polymer to eliminate friction problems. Actuation of the gate is performed using a hand crank, a handwheel, or a chain wheel, depending on the processor’s preference. Contact points are made of Type 304 stainless steel, and the blade is made of polished stainless steel. Built in a narrow profile, the gate’s frame is made of lightweight aluminum.
Lorenz, ON, Canada 905-372-2240 www.lorenz.ca

Metal Detector
Booths 1733 & 2015 – Designed to serve the plastics, rubber, recycling, and chemical industries, the state-of-the-art E-Z Tec 9100 metal detector can be used for free-fall or gravity-fed applications, especially where vertical space is limited. It ensures detection and rejection of very small ferrous, nonferrous, and stainless-steel metals. Employing a balanced coil technology, the unit offers a higher sensitivity than its predecessors. While primarily designed for inspecting plastic pellets and regrind, this metal detector also has applications in various other industries.
Eriez, Erie, PA 888-300-3743 www.eriez.com

Fluid-Bed Dryers and Coolers
Booth 1234 – With an innovative yet simple transport design and unique drive system, these fluid-bed dryers and coolers are ideal for conditioning a wide variety of food, chemical, dairy, pharmaceutical, and aggregate products. With its high-amplitude, low-frequency construction, the equipment offers true product-plug flow, accurate product residence-time adjustments, and low air requirements for energy savings. Because the units have a simple drive system, processors are assured that product is transported in a first-in–first-out series, one of the biggest advantages the mechanism offers over vibratory drives. The entire time-proven drive system has few moving parts, making it easy to maintain and mechanically reliable. A new dimension to these fluid-bed dryers and coolers is that subfluidized conditioning is achieved with an exclusive shaking mechanism. In this process, product is kept at the fluidization threshold, so there is little or no axial or longitudinal mixing and the spread of residence times between particles is minimized.
Ventilex USA, West Chester, OH 513-874-4451 www.ventilex.net

Material-Handling Systems and Subsystems
This new brochure details the company’s ability to custom design, engineer, and manufacture integrated systems that meet customer-specific production processes for single or multiple operations. The designs include a line layout, structural support steel, equipment, and integrated controls for a wide range of dry-solids operations. The brochure includes a broad overview of the company’s capabilities, industry experience, and engineered offerings for a wide range of dry-bulk-solids-handling applications. Systems perform continuous gravimetric feeding, minor-ingredient feeding, or feeding based on recipe. With PLC control functionality, they also regulate flow or meter product discharge into a continuous process, perform continuous blending or batching by weight or volume, feed and convey, and perform bulk container filling and emptying.
Metalfab Inc., Vernon, NJ 800-764-2999 www.metalfabinc.com

Silo Fluidizer
Booth 2625 – The patent-pending Mini Disk silo fluidizer prevents bridging, rat-holing, and compacting in silos, bins, and hoppers. The new 2-in.-diam unit fits in pipes, chutes, and small hoppers as well as in tight-curvature chambers with diameters as small as 4 in. The compact size provides material-handling engineers and designers with many pneumatic conveying options. The fluidizer utilizes directional airflow along the wall of the chamber to loosen product and move it to the discharge point. Gentle vibration is provided at the outer edges of the disk to help keep powders and bulk solids flowing. Because the disk seals tightly against the chamber wall, there is minimum backpressure. This design advantage also prevents air-line plugging. The unit’s aerators are compatible with food-grade materials and are FDA approved. The aerators withstand temperatures to 350°F. The silicone material used on the standard and Mini Disk will not tear or absorb moisture.
Solimar Pneumatics, Minneapolis, MN 800-233-7109 www.solimarpneumatics.com

Vacuum Transfer Systems
These vacuum transfer systems (VTSs) allow for controlled and contained charging of reactors and mix tanks. Product can also be charged and discharged in an oxygen-free inert atmosphere, if necessary. The systems eliminate all of the containment, safety, and ergonomic issues previously associated with manually scooping powders from a drum, climbing a ladder, and dumping powder through a man-way or a small charge port of a tank or reactor. The VTS simply clamps to a sanitary ferrule on the mix tank. It is completely pneumatic and therefore inherently safe. All that is needed is a ½-in. compressed-air line and it is ready to operate. The systems are compact, easily handled, and easily cleaned. With virtually no moving parts, the design ensures that powder transfer is complete, with no product hang-up.
IEDCO, Turnersville, NJ 856-728-6400 www.iedco.com